Manifesto launch – press round-up

Here is some of the coverage of the press launch of Left Unity’s manifesto.

“Political press conferences in central London are not rare,” wrote Nick Eardley from BBC News. “Political press conferences in squats in abandoned offices in central London are.”

Left Unity’s manifesto launch was held in an occupied Soho office block to highlight the number of large buildings sitting empty in London at a time when homelessness is increasing.

The BBC continues:

The party’s manifesto calls for a “massive expansion of the publicly owned and democratically controlled housing sector, and for social housing to be allocated according to need”. The party supports the legalisation of squatting in empty buildings, including the venue for the launch on Tuesday, [Kate] Hudson says.
 
And it calls for rent controls and the end of what the party calls the “bedroom tax” – the cutting of benefits for those deemed to have spare rooms.
 
“We have 93,000 children Shelter declares as homeless”, [Ken] Loach said. “Think of all those kids whose education is blighted, whose family life is blighted, who live with insecurity. That’s a consequence of leaving housing to the market. Left Unity’s proposal is that we go back to directly employed labour – directly employed building workers, architects, planners, so that we build stable and secure developments where there is housing for people.”
 
Beyond housing, the party also calls for full employment, a £10 an hour minimum wage and an end to austerity.

Anoosh Chakelian from the New Statesman spoke to some of the squatters about their lives:

Rav, a 23-year-old clean-shaven and softly-spoken man in a grey jumper, is making an enormous pot of porridge on a portable stove in the squat’s makeshift kitchen. “In central London, you’re usually given two weeks. We’ve been here five,” he smiles. “So I’m prepared to be packing pretty quick.”
 
Why does he think the 40 or 50 squatters here have a right to live in these places? “There are so many empty buildings in London. And we’re using it to do positive things. To house homeless people, to feed them, and for events and political discussions like this one.”

The Evening Standard quotes Left Unity principal speaker Felicity Dowling:

“Instead of using a glitzy venue like the main parties we want to highlight the growing crisis of homelessness.
 
“Rents are rocketing and good housing getting further out of reach for so many – yet there are 700,000 empty buildings in Britain that could be brought back into use.
 
“It’s just not right that so much space is wasted while people are sleeping on the streets.”

More from AFP, the Morning Star and an in-depth interview with Ken Loach on London Live.